Great project and excellent detail on progress.

Thanks for the positive comments, keeps the project going!

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Originally posted by grant
[br]what paint did you use? and did you mix plaspak with it? or it will crack. but dont use too much, or it will crack [:I]

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I have no idea what brand of paint it is, it's a commercial grade we have at work, the painters say it's flexible and durable so I guess I'll find out!

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Originally posted by Vanman
[br]They are going to look awesome on the car. Nice choice on the polished/charcoal combo. Have you decided what sized rubber your putting on them?

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My standard tyres at the moment are 205/60/13s and so the correct tyre size for no overall diameter change (0.05% or at 100kmh the speedo will still read 100kmh) is 195/50/15. Not that it matters because I bet my speedo isn't totally accurate at 100kmh anyway, but no point making it worse. They aren't quite as wide as the old tyres (which will become track rubber for this car or the rally car) but I knew that and am happy with it. The car is a massive handful in the wet with 205s on it as it is.

Today, I thought it was time to install the teflon lip spoiler that I bought from somebody here a few months back. I don't know what it is from originally, but it needed alot of modifying to fit properly.



After I had spent an hour or so getting the spoiler to sit right, I then stuck the Ford badge back on. I removed the rear bumper ends and the little grill thing between the door windows and the rear windscreen, put them with the headlight surrounds and will take them all back and spray them up in fresh semi gloss black.



It's coming along. Only a couple minor visual things to go before the car will hit the shop for an exhaust past the headers and a dyno tune - and then hopefully rego.

Timmeh

Great work - a HUGE difference in the appearance once the bumpers / grill painted along with the (assumed XE Falcon "S" pack) front lip.

At least it gives me an idea how mine will look!

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Originally posted by Paul Dunstan
[br]Great work - a HUGE difference in the appearance once the bumpers / grill painted along with the (assumed XE Falcon "S" pack) front lip.

At least it gives me an idea how mine will look!

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Is that what the front lip is from? I had wondered, it's definitely off a large car as I had to cut it down both width wise and front-to-back wise as well.

Thanks, it does make a huge difference to the car. Now everytime I want to get under the front of it I have to put it back on stands haha.

Timmeh

Well the front bar is now completed and assembled, but I am not sure the work is completely done. I had to spray around the area behind the headlight surrounds as they did not completely cover that area due to their age and design.


I then reassembled the front bar, and it was done.

It started like this:



And finished like this:



I am extremely happy with how she looks, but I am not convinced the paint will be durable enough. I have bought a satin clear paint to go over the top of the black, I will try applying a few coats to hopefully give the satin black some more strength so it lasts longer! Fingers crossed, anyhow...

That will go on in the next day or so, pending the trial I did with it on the rear quarter bumpers.

I did an electrics check and everything works except the high beam. I am not sure if this is required for rego or not, but I'll look into it anyway.

2 weeks or so to go for my wheels to come in, also.

Timmeh

An update on the work over the past couple of days:

The front bar had its last coat of clear satin, and I also re-adjusted all the headlights to sit in their surrounds as properly as I could get them.

I've had the dash apart (again) chasing a couple of electrical gremlins, mainly nil operation of the engine temp gauge (which has been that way since I bought it), nil op of the tacho, and nil op of the high beam headlights.

I disconnected any switches related to the high beam, and reconnected them all, cleaned out the fuse holder extremely well (and the fuse), and lo and behold, the high beams started working. I think a contact in one of the switch connectors must have not engaged properly, unsure, but either way I'll be re-wiring the high beam to include a relay, rather than running the whole current straight thru the switch (damn dodgy Lucas - Prince of Darkness!).

I resigned myself to the fact that the engine temp gauge was rooted, so I bought a complete VDO setup, from the coolant temp sensor and a whole new wire loomed thru the firewall to a nice little gauge I have mounted just under the dash on the far right hand side of the car. I'll grab some pictures when its not so dark.

The tacho still eludes me, but its not the dash side of things, rather the pickup that I cannot seem to get working. I tried a few simple things but ran out of time tonight.

However, I did get the stereo system completely back in. The front speakers are pretty poo, as I knew, but the deck and rear Pioneer 6x9s go off. They are alot better than I remember, so I'll keep the CD player and 6x9s and just replace the front speakers with something a little less visible. It was just awesome sitting in the car, all electrics working properly, listening to a pumping CD track, knowing the car was potentially only days from being registered.

Left to go:
- Order the custom plates, doing that tomorrow.
- Get the tacho working.
- Torque the tailshaft bolts.
- Get the exhaust installed and get the exhaust guys to supply and install the circlip to hold the speedo cable in. I have a circlip that is 90% of the right size but none in my circlip kit are 100% right.
- Drain the coolant system, install the new VDO temp sensor and connect the new wire to it, reconnect the heater into the coolant system, and re-fill.
- Install the new 15 inch charcoal Superlites when they come in.
- Initial dyno tune.
- Possibly lower the car, depending on how it looks when the rims go on.
- Registration

It's almost there! [:x)]

Timmeh

Mate, a HUGE inprovement over the initial condition of the front bar [:u] - well done!

I'm VERY interested in seeing how the charcoal rims look on the white RS

there is a wire (pink for memory) in the loom that should be conected to the points side of the coil, this is the feed to the tacho. If you have power to the dash (12v) and this wire is conected, the tacho should work. Run a tempory wire from the points side of the coil to straight to the back of the tacho and see if it works then, that will eliminate the cars loom. on the back of the tacho there are 3 bolts, one is ground, one is 12v and teh other should be signal. same goes with the temp sensor just run your new wire to the back of the dash to check, but the loom wire should be ok still. Also another thing to check is the contacts where the dash loom plugs intothe dash, make sure all contacts are clean.(robbon strips in the dash and wire contacts)
The front bar does look very nice now. Well done.[:p]

Love the look of a neat white RS!!

With your black painting on the grille and bumpers etc, as long as you use the correct plastic primer and then a few drops of "Flexi Add" in the paint it should last well.

The flexi-add allows the paint to expand and contract with the plastic which is usually what causes painted plastic parts to crack and flake off.

Well done on a very nice looking car!

G

still IMO one of the best project threads ive ever read, such detail its crazy!

car is looking tops mate, i love the XE lip, i rekn they are the finishing touch to any RS

very interested to see what these charcoal rims look like, ive pondered and played on photoshop but never been ballsy enough to commit to it[:I]

cheers
Rhys